Lace and Inspiriation

I saw this trio of Queen Anne's lace, which were an inspiration for my work Trillium and QUeen ANne's Lace.

Trillium are those elusive flowers, which, like the Mourning Dove, I must confess I have never actually seen, which are an emblem of Ontario:

Ontario's floral emblem, the white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), was adopted in 1937. It blooms in late April and May. The blooms are very sensitive to light, and the white flowers usually bend toward the sun as it moves across the sky. The white trillium is found in the deciduous forests and woodlands of Ontario.

The adoption of an official flower for Ontario grew out of a movement during the First World War to choose a national floral emblem appropriate for planting on the graves of Canadian servicemen overseas. The trillium was proposed by the Ottawa Horticultural Society. Although it was well received, no national flower was ever chosen.

Here is what I wrote in 2008 about the trillium, and its part in Ontario's symbolic history:

...the provincial logo of a stylized Trillium grandiflorum was transformed in 2006 into what looks like a group of people stringed together by triangular hooks. Probably only those privy to the original trillium logo would be able to recognize the flower in this new design. The trillium was originally proposed as a flower to place on the overseas graves of Canadian servicemen from the First World War. Although that was not adopted, the flower was later taken up as the provincial emblem in 1937. It was later incorporated into the provincial logo in 1964. Unlike the precarious linking of anonymous stick figures, this original logo was a real, recognizable part of the Ontario landscape translated into a ubiquitous, powerful and beloved motif.

This is where the 2008 Olympics symbolism starts to make sense. The designers, two Asian-Canadians, Tu Ly and Vivienne Lu, under the direction of Suzanne Timmins of the Hudson Bay’s Company, claimed that they were fusing cultures and symbols when designing the Olympics uniform. "We are the world, we are the children…" It’s beginning to sound like the hooked stick figures in the new trillium logo. But, it is all even more insidious than that. The lyrics should be: "We aren’t Canadians, so who are we…."

The Ontario trillium logo has gone through three changes between its inaugural in 1964 and 2002 that were almost identical to the original save a slight thickening of the lines, or a minor lengthening of the flower. But, the final revision in 2006 completely changed its form, because its symbolism also changed. The original logo was a visual representation of Ontario, and what better way to do it than through the landscape, picking the perfect flower right in our very own back yard, created for an infallible design. The 2006 version was a superficial attempt to connect disparate Ontarians in a ring of feel-good unity.

And here is the "evolution of design" as I incorporated the Queen Anne's Lace with the trillium:


And my notes:

Design is a slow evolution of ideas, and how to best juxtapose different elements. I think the best reference is nature itself, and later on many motifs and ideas start coming together. It is also easier to work in threes - two flowers, one leaf, etc. I drew both important elements - the trillium and the Queen Anne's lace before I worked on putting them together. I used the structured trillium with the more powdery and whimsical Queen Anne's lace, and brought still more structure into the design by placing flowers in (and around) a spiral.

Queen Ann's lace has another mundane name: Wild carrot. But here is the interesting information about the two names (from the site lined above): "Queen Anne's Lace is the wild progenitor of the domesticated carrot."

And here is the mystery of the purple floret, which I managed to capture in my photograph today: